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Sunday, August 13, 2017

Hobson’s choice for Israel. By rigorous process of elimination, we are left with the Humanitarian Paradigm, as the only possible policy prescription able to adequately address the imperatives needed to preserve Israel as the nation state of Jews.

O, who can hold a fire in his hand; By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite; By bare imagination of a feast?Or wallow naked in December snow; By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?- William Shakespeare, in Richard II, Act1 Scene 3, on the futility of self-deceptionThere is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.– Sherlock Holmes, “The Boscombe Valley Mystery”

[Read Part I here]Last
week I began a two-part analysis of the policy paradigms that have
emerged in the public discourse for dealing with the more-than-century
old dispute between Jews and Arabs over control of the Holy Land as the
conflict approaches its third post-Oslo decade.

In it, I
identified four such archetypical paradigms for its resolution—and one
for its “management” (a.k.a. its perpetuation). Moreover, I undertook to
demonstrate that only one of these alternatives, the Humanitarian
Paradigm, advocating funded emigration of the Arab residents of
Judea-Samaria (and eventually Gaza)—is consistent with the long-term
survival of Israel as the nation-state of the Jews. Accordingly, for
those dedicated to the preservation of the Zionist ideal, it is nothing
less than “Hobson’s choice”.

To recap briefly

Readers
will recall that I confined the analysis last week to those policy
proposals that eschew full or partial Israeli annexation of territory,
deferring analysis of those that endorse such annexation for this week’s
discussion.

To recap briefly: In the aforementioned prior
analysis I dealt with the (a) idea of “managing the conflict” and (b)
the two-state formula.

As for the former, it was shown to reflect
disregard for the fact that, without appropriate decisive proactive
initiatives, Israel is facing a growing threat and decreasing freedom to
deal with it. Accordingly, “managing the conflict” is little more
than a pretext for backing away from confrontations in which Israel can
prevail, while backing into a confrontation in which Israel might not
prevail—or do so only at ruinous cost. As for the latter, it has
shown to be a fatally flawed formula, devoid of any sound theoretical
foundation or empirical evidence on which to base its naïve prognoses
for resolving the conflict by means of Palestinian statehood. Indeed,
given the past precedents, there is little reason to believe—and
two-state proponents have never provided one—that any future
Palestinian state will not rapidly become a mega-Gaza on the fringes of
Greater Tel Aviv, precipitating all the harrowing realities, wrought on
the hapless residents of the South on those of the coastal megalopolis.

So
having dealt with the policy paradigms that eschew annexation-- whether
full or partial--it is now time to assess those that endorse it. One-state: Lebanonization of Israeli society

Some
pundits on the Israeli “Right”, keenly aware of the infeasibility of
the two-state paradigm, have in large measure adopted—albeit for very
different reasons—a prescription very similar to that touted by their
radical Left-wing adversaries—that of a single state stretching from the
Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

According to this
proposal, Israel should extend its sovereignty over the entire area of
Judea-Samaria and offer immediate permanent residency to all its
Palestinian-Arab residents, as well as the right to apply for
citizenship at some undefined date, via some undefined process to
ascertain loyalty—or at least the absence of disloyalty—to Israel as the
Jewish nation state.

The rationale, allegedly underpinning this
ill-conceived proposal, is the new, optimistic demographic assessments
suggesting that even if Israel were to enfranchise the Muslim population
of Judea-Samaria, it would still retain a more than 60% Jewish
majority.Even conceding that this may be true, such a measure is likely
to herald disaster for the Zionist enterprise and the future of Israel
as the nation-state of the Jews. For the initial electoral arithmetic is
hardly the defining factor in assessing the prudence of this approach,
but rather the devastating effect it will have on the socio-economic
fabric of the country and the impact this will have on preserving Israel
as a desired/desirable place of residence for Jews inside and outside
the country.

It would take considerable—and unsubstantiated—faith
to entertain the belief that Israel could sustain itself as a Jewish
nation-state with a massive Muslim minority of almost 40% – as the
societal havoc that far smaller proportions have wrought in Europe
indicate.Indeed this is a clear recipe for the Lebanonization of
Israeli society with all the inter-ethnic strife that tore Israel’s
unfortunate northern neighbor apart.

Lebanonization of Israel (cont.)

Any
forlorn hope that life under Israeli sovereignty will somehow
“domesticate” the Palestinian-Arabs into reconciling themselves to life
in the Jewish nation-state should have been well and truly dashed by the
behavior of Israel’s Arab citizens.

After all, despite living
(and prospering) for seven decades under Israeli sovereignty—and more
than a half-century after military rule over the Arab population was
abolished—they not only voted, almost en-bloc, for the vehemently
anti-Zionist “Joint List” in the 2015 elections, but displayed great
empathy in a mass funeral for the terrorists, from the Israeli town of
Um-al Fahm, who murdered two Israeli police officers on the Temple
Mount.

Once the Arab population of Judea-Samaria becomes
incorporated into Israel’s permanent population, at least two crucial
elements of national life are almost certain to be dramatically—and in
Zionist-compliant terms, negatively –impacted. The one is the
distribution of national resources; the other is population flows into,
and out of, the country. With regard to the former, clearly once the
Arab residents of Judea and Samaria—whether enfranchised or not—become
incorporated into the country’s permanent population, Israel will not be
able to afford the kind of socio-economic disparities that prevail
between the pre- and post-annexation segments of the population.Accordingly,
huge budget resources will have to be diverted to reduce these
disparities – siphoning off funds currently spent on the Jewish
population (and Israeli Arabs) in terms of welfare, medical care,
infrastructure, education and so on.Indeed, if enfranchisement
(eventual or immediate) is envisaged, the electoral potential of the
Arab sector is liable to be elevated from its current 13-15 seats in
parliament to 25-30. This will not only hugely bolster its ability to
demand enhanced budgetary allotments, but also make it virtually
impossible to form a governing coalition without their endorsement.

Moreover,
collaboration on various ad hoc parliamentary initiatives with
radical Jewish left-wing factions is likely to nullify any formal
calculations of an ostensible “Jewish majority”, and lead to legislative
enterprises that ultra-Zionist proponents of annexation would strongly
oppose – in an ironic manifestation of unintended consequences.

Partial Annexation: The Balkanization of Israel

Thus,
while full annexation of Judea-Samaria will almost inevitably result in
the Lebanonization of Israel—i.e. create a single society, so
fractured by interethnic strife that it would be untenable as the
nation- state of the Jewish people; proposals for the partial annexation
of Judea-Samaria will result in the Balkanization of Israel - (i.e.
dividing the territory up into disconnected autonomous enclaves, which
will be recalcitrant, rivalrous and rejectionist, creating an
ungovernable reality for Israel.)

Proposals for partial annexation
appear to be fueled by (a) concern that total annexation would be too
drastic a step for the international community to “swallow”, and (b) a
sense that some semblance of self-rule must be facilitated for the Arabs
resident in Judea and Samaria. As will be shown, partial annexation
will address neither of these issues effectively. Indeed quite the
opposite is true.

Proposals for partial annexation are commonly
of two types: Those that prescribe including selected areas of
Judea-Samaria under Israeli sovereignty (such as Area C as advanced by
Education Minister Naftali Bennett) ; and those that prescribe
excluding certain selected areas from Israeli sovereignty such as the
large urban centers in Judea-Samaria (such as advanced by Dr. Mordechai
Kedar in his “Emirates” plan)

Sadly, neither of these paradigms
will solve any of the diplomatic or security problems Israel faces
today, and will in fact exacerbate many.

The Balkanization of Israel (cont)

It
is hardly necessary to go into the intricate details of the individual
proposals for partial annexation to grasp how impractical they really
are.

For whatever the configuration of the un-annexed areas left
to Arab administration –whether the disconnected enclaves of Areas A and
B, or the micro-mini “city states”—they will leave the sovereign
territory of Israel with dauntingly long and contorted frontiers, making
it almost impossible to delineate and secure. Clearly if one cannot
effectively demarcate and secure one’s sovereign territory, there is
little meaning to one’s sovereign authority over that territory.

Although
Haaretz is not my preferred source of reference, I find it difficult to
disagree with the following assessment of Bennett’s plan for annexing
Area C: “… Bennett’s plan is groundless from the security,
diplomatic, legal and, especially, physical angles. It’s easy to discern
that, contrary to what was presented in a video produced by
Bennett’s…party recently, Areas A and B in the West Bank are not
contiguous blocs, spreading over 40 percent of the West Bank. Instead,
they consist of no less than 169 Palestinian blocs and communities, cut
off from one another by innumerable Israeli corridors and unused IDF
firing zones that are together defined as Area C”.

It correctly
pointed out: “… in fact, Bennett is proposing to increase the length of
the Israeli border from 313 kilometers to 1,800 kilometers (194 to 1,118
miles). If [one] believe[s] Bennett, he will doubtless back the
dismantling of the security barrier that Israel has built to the tune of
15 billion shekels ($3.9 billion), but [one] will have to accept that
annexing Area C means Israel will have to build a barrier along the new
border at the cost of 27 billion shekels and allocate another 4 billion
shekels per year for maintenance purposes.”

Partial Annexation: Full political price

Similar
criticism can be leveled at Kedar’s proposal for setting up an array of
up to eight micro-mini “emirates” or city states. It is not difficult
to envisage the problems of future expansion beyond the highly
constricted confines of disconnected enclaves, and of the need to
severely curtail the authority of the local administration to deal with
cross border issues such as pollution (particularly the carcinogenic
emissions of the wide spread charcoal industry), sewage, pollution from
industrial effluents, agricultural run-off, transmissible diseases and
so on.

Of course, any hopes that partial annexation, which
entails extending Israeli sovereignty over about 65-75% of the
territory, leaving the Palestinian-Arabs with an emasculated 25-30%, in
a quilted patchwork of disconnected enclaves and corridors, will in any
way diminish international censure, are utterly unfounded. The
political “pain” involved in such schemes would be no less than annexing
100% of the territory—without having to deal with the attendant chronic
problems associated with partial annexation (as detailed above).

Fanciful
suggestions that Nablus and Hebron might flourish into entities like
Monaco and Luxembourg are as risible as those which, in the heady days
of Oslo, predicted that Gaza would become the Hong Kong of the Mid
East—and would be rightfully rejected as such.

Humanitarian Paradigm: Hobson’s choice

Even
from the far-from-exhaustive analysis conducted over the last two
weeks, it should be clear that an indisputable picture emerges as to the
Zionist-compliant feasibility of the various policy paradigms proposed
for dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Thus:

-
The attempt to manage the conflict is little more than a formula for
backing away from confrontations in which Israel can prevail, while
backing into a confrontation in which Israel might not prevail—or may do
so only at ruinous cost.

- The two-state paradigm will almost
inevitably result in the establishment of a yet another homophobic,
misogynistic, Muslim-majority tyranny, which will rapidly become a
mega-Gaza on the fringes of Greater Tel Aviv, menacing the
socio-economic routine in the commercial hub of the country.

-Full
annexation of Judea-Samaria together with the Arab population will
result in the Lebanonization of Israeli society and thrust the country
into ruinous inter-ethnic strife that will imperil it status as the
nation-state of the Jewish people.

- Partial annexation of
Judea-Samaria will result in the Balkanization of Israel, dividing the
territory up into disconnected, rivalrous, recalcitrant and
unsustainable autonomous enclaves, which will create an ungovernable
reality for Israel.

Thus, by a rigorous process of deductive
elimination we are left with the Humanitarian Paradigm, advocating
funded emigration for non-belligerent Palestinian-Arabs to third party
countries, as the only possible paradigm that can adequately address
both the geographic and demographic imperatives needed to preserve
Israel as the nation state of Jews. As such, for Zionists, it is
Hobson’s choice. Anything else is self-deceptionDr. Martin Sherman served for seven years in operational capacities in the Israeli
Defense establishment, was ministerial adviser to Yitzhak Shamir's
government and lectured for 20 years at Tel Aviv University in Political
Science, International Relations and Strategic Studies. He has a B.Sc.
(Physics and Geology), MBA (Finance), and PhD in political science and
international relations, was the first academic director of the Herzliya
Conference and is the author of two books and numerous articles and
policy papers on a wide range of political, diplomatic and security
issues. He is founder and executive director of the Israel Institute
for Strategic Studies (www.strategicisrael.org). Born in South Africa,he
has lived in Israel since 1971. Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/20861 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.